Despite looking much like its previous range of flagship mobiles, a raft of improvements has
been announced – such as a more powerful Qualcomm chip, the Snapdragon S4, impressive-looking
photography settings from PureView and even wireless charging.

But, with Samsung seemingly taking over the world with its handsets – wherever
it got its ideas from – and Apple’s next iPhone looming over the mobile industry, is the launch
enough to grab the attention of the market and, most importantly, the users?

First impressions of the handset and the lower-end accompanying device, the Lumia 820, were
positive, with more than one analyst telling Computer Weekly they were “solid” designs. For once
the phones are not comparable to Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy SIII and, although the
significant range of colours are bright and perhaps a tad tacky, the change is refreshing.

Although the launch was very consumer-focused, there is also no doubt the handsets would be very
good for the business user too. With Microsoft powering the software, the compatibility for work
documents and applications is superb and the ability to secure devices for a corporate network will
be easy to take advantage of.

“Windows Phone 8 will certainly be an alternative to RIM for some organisations, and also has
the potential to get into enterprise before Android has a real place in there,” said Carolina
Milanesi, research vice-president at Gartner.

“Encryption was one of the main things that our clients were waiting for and that came.”

But, despite this opportunity for Nokia to aim at the enterprise with these devices, its focus
still seems to be on winning over the cooler consumer customers from Apple and Google.

That begs the question, if it is the consumer market Nokia wants, was Microsoft really the right
choice of partner?

Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst at Ovum, believes that, at this point, sticking with
Microsoft is Nokia’s best option.

“They would likely have sold many more phones over the last year or so with Android,” he said,
“but now that Windows 8 is launching, a Windows Phone will be a much easier sell and that should
really help them.”

Now that Windows 8 is launching, a Windows Phone will be a much
easier sell and that should really help Nokia

Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst, Ovum

Milanesi agrees that Microsoft was the right choice to make over Android for its longer term
strategy.

“Nokia still cares about building a Nokia ecosystem and not being swallowed into the ecosystem
of the platform owner – as would have been the case with Android,” she said.

Both Dawson and Milanesi are right that Microsoft is a safe company to bet on, and with all the
momentum it is growing behind the launch of its desktop and tablet OS, Windows 8, Nokia should be
able to ride the wave of the hype.

But, while Nokia remains dedicated to the Microsoft cause, the software giant has its fingers in
a number of pies.

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, even brought up the prospect of more Windows Phone 8 devices at
Nokia’s own launch party, mentioning Samsung’s unveiling and hinting towards seeing others “over
the course of the next month or two” – something that must have left Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia,
reeling as he loitered in the background.

But Milanesi claimed Nokia didn’t have too much to worry about as other manufacturers would not
put as much effort into its Windows Phone 8 devices.

“Of course, today the Samsung brand is stronger in many markets, but I doubt that we will see a
strong push from Samsung in the short term,” she said. “I also think Nokia has a better chance to
differentiate than Samsung does, so as long as they build up their brand, it should not be a long
term issue.”

Dawson added that Nokia was still ahead of its competitors, as journalists only got a brief
glimpse of the Samsung option and HTC still hasn’t been seen.

“Nokia now has phones announced which are ready to show, whereas Samsung only showed its phone
on stage,” he said. “Nokia's phones are better differentiated in both hardware and software from
what we've seen so far, so I think Nokia is in good shape.”

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